Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl

by Tracy Quan

  “Men are dogs,” Elspeth was saying. “Jason promised to be here no later than six! To help! Yeah, right. He’s stuck in a meeting and he totally forgot. Did you get my e-mail?” she asked. “About the fabric dyes?”

  “I haven’t had a chance to log on all day,” I explained. “I was, um, trying to get this project finished and I got sort of caught up—overwhelmed by it.”

  “And listen, there’s this website that—don’t knock it till you try it—helps you organize your wedding. I wish this had been around five years ago, when I got married. Take it from me, the Day will go more smoothly if you break it down into components. They have a private chat list for anxious brides. Lucy, my colorist, says they discuss everything.” She cast a meaningful glance at Matt, to indicate the Girls Only quality of the list.

  “Really? Like, first-night jitters?” Matt said, with a mischievous smirk.

  “No.” Elspeth pretended to be annoyed. “Lingerie and bouquets. So, Nancy: this project that keeps you so busy. What’s the latest? Are you almost done?”

  Miranda turned away from Christopher and leaned in to hear more. I felt a quiver of insecurity in my solar plexus, which I tried to quell with champagne, then managed to make a few non-remarks about my fake job. Matt, Elspeth, my family, his family—they all think of me as a part-time slacker who does copyediting for extra money. Miranda is so clearly a girl with an allowance that any relative of hers can be tarred with the same brush, so Matt assumes that my work supplements a modest income from my parents.

  Fortunately, most people think the doings of a copy editor are pretty boring. It’s easy to get them distracted from my supposed job: Just talk about it! The subject usually changes, quite rapidly, when I explain that my current “project” is a massive treatise on Eastern medicine that the author hopes to translate into German. It’s important to mention a language that is totally unsexy.

  “How did you meet this guy?” Elspeth asked. “This—what is he, an acupuncturist? And a chiropractor? From where?” She wasn’t letting go of the subject as easily as I had hoped.

  “Oh, ah, he’s a family friend of the translator,” I explained. “She’s going to translate the whole thing when I’m finished, and we’re having this terrible problem because a file got corrupted and he only made one backup.”

  Christopher was trying to look interested and Matt was examining the wine bottles as Elspeth went on.

  “And where did he train?” she said, looking directly at me.

  I was stumped. Where did this fictional chiropractor learn how to be an acupuncturist? She was waiting for an answer.

  “Uh, you mean his computer training or his medical training?” I did my best to appear confused. “His computer skills are negligible,” I added.

  Elspeth glanced at Matt and began to say something. Then she stopped. I turned to the bar for another glass of champagne, horrified by my questionable performance. When I came back, Elspeth was having a rather quiet tête-à-tête with her brother. Matt looked up and came closer, to put his arm around my waist while Elspeth gave us both a long, thoughtful stare.

  “So, what’s the publication date?” Elspeth demanded, in a cheery yet ominous voice.

  “Well, I…” Leaning into Matt’s light embrace, I cleared my throat pensively. “The thing is, I made an agreement. I’ve signed a contract not to discuss—I’m not really allowed to disclose any of the details. I know it’s a bit silly—with a book like this—but it’s part of my arrangement with the translator.”

  “Really? Is that a common practice?” Elspeth wanted to know.

  Jesus Christ.

  “I thought it was, but I really don’t know. Why?”

  It bothered me that she had stopped asking where the chiropractor trained and was now on a new line of questioning altogether—just when I thought I might have a suitable answer for the last question. And this was all supposed to be so boring!

  “I wonder if a contract of this sort is enforceable,” she said. “What are the limits? Did you show it to a lawyer? If you did, you’d have to tell your lawyer about the book. What if you told your doctor? Or your psychiatrist? Could a publisher call them to testify about what you leaked? What if there was a crime involved?”

  “Elspeth had too much coffee this morning,” Matt sighed.

  “Well, a contract like that raises important privilege issues that Nancy might not have considered.” She looked at me quizzically. “Not that you’re the kind of girl with any secrets to keep. Or are you?” she asked with a sharp, mischievous smile.

  A tall blonde in a red scoop-necked blouse and a leather skirt caused Elspeth to break away. “Karen! You look great! I’d like you to meet my future sister-in-law, Nancy.”

  I wondered if Karen was one of Elspeth’s law school buddies, a fellow prosecutor, perhaps. Increasingly, I find that the more provocative the outfit, the straighter the job. I almost wonder if a display of cleavage and flesh will make me blend in more.

  “My brother’s a player,” Elspeth said proudly. She grabbed my hand to show Karen my three-carat diamond. “When he does something, he really does it.”

  “It’s gorgeous,” Karen gushed. “We have to talk! I just heard about a fabulous two-bedroom—would you consider moving downtown? Tribeca?”

  “Karen’s a real estate genius,” Elspeth chimed in. “Give them your card—I was telling Matt the other day, ‘You can’t expect Nancy to start a new life with you in that bachelor pad!’”

  Elspeth’s husband appeared in the doorway carrying a huge briefcase. Jason’s the money in that marriage—an M&A lawyer. Elspeth, the assistant D.A., sees herself as the integrity. Naturally, he’s the polite one and she’s the loudmouth.

  “Better late than never!” she rasped cheerfully. “Where were you?”

  As he leaned forward for our perfunctory kiss on the cheek, we exchanged a brief look, that “Eye Contract” entered into by two people who might never have met if two other people weren’t related to each other. Restrained sympathy. A curious desire to understand the other person. Followed by relief because you don’t really have to.

  When I turned around, Karen and Matt were trading business cards, and I could feel the walls of an unseen apartment closing in on me.

  “Matt says you have a new e-mail address? Here’s mine. You’re going to love this place—it’s perfect for a young couple,” Karen told me.

  “Oh, I’d love it if you two moved downtown,” Miranda said. “There’s so much happening! We can meet for lunch, Nancy, near the museum.” Miranda works at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, which is smack-dab in the middle of thronging hell! But she loves it because she has no memory of what SoHo was like when it was just a budding restaurant scene with a few nice shops.

  “And it’s closer to work,” Matt said. “Definitely. Can we see it this weekend?”

  What did I get myself into here? Tribeca? Oh god. Overpriced, inconvenient, miles from my hairdresser and my bikini waxing…not to mention my shrink. But my geographic horror gave way to relief. Thanks to Karen and Miranda and Matt, all singing the praises of an overrated neighborhood, Elspeth was now focusing on us as a couple and seemed to be less curious about me. Thank god.

  SUNDAY. 2/13/00

  Update on the Tribeca 2BR. According to Karen’s bubbly e-mail, it’s got a breakfast nook and a balcony. The current occupants bought in ’92, before the market started going haywire, and the husband has persuaded his wife to relocate to East End Avenue so their daughter can walk to school. Karen has a special rapport with the co-op board, which insists on vetting all prospective renters—in the flesh. “I’ll get you in, no problem,” she threatened—I mean, promised.

  This morning, while Matt was in the shower, I snuck in a quick call to Liane. “I can’t talk long,” I warned her. “My boyfriend and I are going to look at a rental on Franklin Street. I just have a minute.”

  Like every madam I’ve known, Liane is exceedingly generous with her wisdom. At seventy-something, tall, slen
der, and Dioresque, she is still the epitome of 1950s elegance. And fifties ethics, too.

  “Under no circumstances should a girl like you ‘live with’ a man,” she said. “These trial marriages are a big mistake.”

  Trial marriage? Wow. If I tell Liane that I’m responsible for putting off the wedding date, I’ll never hear the end of it.

  “Well, I’m not going to tell you how to conduct your life, dear. Don’t you know anyone who’s available tomorrow night?” she asked, changing the subject.

  February fourteenth. A great night to be a call girl without a valentine and a terrible night for madams, because too many girls have relationships that tie them up (so to speak) for the evening.

  “You, of course, have a good reason to take tomorrow night off,” Liane remarked. “Your fellow has made a commitment, and he’s a catch. Though you’ll soon see that commitment evaporating if you move in with him! What is your fiancé planning for Valentine’s Day?”

  “We’re going to a chamber-music recital.” Liane indicated her approval. “Avoiding the crowds,” I said. “Don’t you think Valentine’s Day can be a bit—”

  “Of a nuisance? Frankly, dear, yes. I have a lovely gentleman from Buenos Aires flying in. He’ll be in meetings all day tomorrow and he wants a brunette with real breasts to arrive at eight, leave at midnight. He’s at the Four Seasons. Dinner in his room, pleasant conversation, garter belt, stockings, two thousand.” She sighed. “He’s so easy, too! Or so I’ve heard. You’d be perfect.”

  I felt a twinge of regret, despite the fact that 40 percent would go to Liane if I were to see him.

  “How about Jasmine?”

  “She’s too businesslike,” Liane objected. “And he prefers someone petite. Well, I suppose, in her little Chanel ballet flats, Jasmine really looks petite and she’s trim and pretty, so he’s not going to send her away…” Jasmine’s five feet five, but I held my tongue as Liane tried to sell herself on the idea. “She has a nice bust—not too big. She hasn’t had her breasts done, has she?”

  “No way!” I assured her. “I’ll call you later.”

  I quickly dialed my hairdresser’s number, allowed it to ring once, and quietly hung up. Just in case Matt happened to hit the redial button.

  We’ve all heard the horror stories—innocent boyfriends accidentally hitting redial, stumbling across numbers and clients and…welcome to Hooker Hell. If that isn’t every call girl’s worst nightmare, it certainly should be!

  MONDAY. 2/14/00

  Today I showed Wendy the keys to Matt’s…bachelor pad, as Elspeth calls it. (What do you call the apartment of a man who wants to forsake bachelorhood for you and you alone?)

  “So you have the keys to your ‘corporate sponsor’s’ headquarters?” my shrink asked, cocking her head to one side.

  The keys were sitting on the small table between us, next to her tissue box.

  “I never use them. Only to lock up when I’m leaving—if he’s not there.”

  “Never?”

  “Well, he might be inspired to ask for a set of mine. I couldn’t possibly let Matt have keys to my place! And I’m always afraid he’ll bring that up. This morning…” I scowled unhappily. “I resolved to throw them into the Hudson.”

  “Really. What’s going on?”

  I crossed my arms uncomfortably. “His sister’s pushing me to set a wedding date, and she introduced us to this real estate broker.” I told Wendy about the two-bedroom on Franklin Street. “Matt thinks it’s wonderful and he just assumes I do, too. He has this idea that we’ll become some kind of downtown couple, but his whole idea of what downtown is really about is just silly! And false! Moving downtown isn’t what makes you a downtown person. It’s so naive! He’s not really a New Yorker,” I explained, “and it’s becoming more obvious. How can I live in Tribeca with some guy who doesn’t even know that he’s not really living downtown, that the whole area has become an overpriced travesty! He has zero sense of real estate irony.”

  “So you’re angry at your boyfriend because he’s still an out-of-towner.”

  Wendy blinked, betraying a hint of a smile, and I suddenly felt unfaithful. Boyfriend-bashing is fine if restricted to certain topics, but this was pushing the envelope. You’re supposed to be able to say anything about anybody in therapy, but I felt guilty. Admitting that he’s geographically unhip to the point of clueless! A good girlfriend doesn’t speak derisively about a guy who is so…invested in her.

  “Where is Matt from, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “Connecticut.”

  “Irish-Catholic?”

  “No, some kind of part-time Protestant. His mother came from one of those Hudson Valley Huguenot families. But he’s not very interested in his ancestors. Or his religion. He’s…” I smiled and blushed. “Very keen on the present and the future.”

  “Yes?” Wendy looked quizzical. “You had a pleasurable thought.”

  “Oh, nothing. He’s so cute,” I sighed. “Sometimes, I just want us to keep dating. I’d like to stop time and be old enough to know better and young enough to play the game and…be pursued by this up-and-coming guy for the rest of my life. I guess I’m like one of those clients—those men who keep holding back because they don’t want to come. They don’t want their session to end, and they just keep prolonging it.”

  “And how do you feel about those men?”

  “I used to hate them! But now I’m used to it. I know how to pace myself, how to hurry them along—gently, of course. But nobody feels upbeat about getting a difficult customer.”

  “So if you’re a difficult customer, what does this new apartment signify? The end of an ‘exciting session’?”

  “Look, any normal woman would be thrilled. It’s really a very nice place. It’s close to Wall Street, so it’s perfect for Matt, but it’s miles away from everything I do. Does he expect me to give up my home, my neighborhood, my entire life? Just like that?”

  “To be fair, I don’t think Matt has any idea what you’ll be giving up if you move in with him.”

  “No kidding! If I move in with him, I’ll—I’ll be reduced to doing outcalls.” (What else? Rent Jasmine’s bedroom by the hour? The bulk of my business today is in my apartment.) “He doesn’t understand how I support myself. I think he thinks I’m getting money from my family.”

  “Did you tell him that?”

  “Um, no. I just sort of let him think it. I mean, there’s no way I could dress the way I do and live where I live if I really made my entire living as a freelance copy editor.”

  “Interesting. Why did you get engaged?” Dr. Wendy asked in a quieter voice.

  Tears of self-pity began to pour down my cheeks. Fortunately, Dr. Wendy’s office and my bedroom are two places where you never have to hunt around for a tissue!

  I blew my nose and explained, “It was totally unprofessional of me—I didn’t think it through! I accepted his ring. I was too dazzled to think—disoriented, afraid—”

  “What were you afraid of?”

  “He came over to pick up his keys.” I pointed to the keys on the table. “We had broken up a few days before, and he was acting strange. I started thinking he was going to assault me.”

  “Has he assaulted you before?” Wendy was alarmed.

  “Of course not!” Matt smacking a girl—that’s unthinkable. But you can’t even joke about such matters these days. Everybody, even your shrink who has known you for half a decade, will suspect that you’re protecting a social monster. “It was a misunderstanding,” I assured her. “I was disoriented. I felt so distant from him at first, and he seemed like a stranger to me, and I didn’t know why he was there. We weren’t seeing each other anymore. But he said he needed his keys because he was locked out of his apartment. And then my mind flashed on this terrible thing that happened when I was sixteen!”

  “Yes?”

  “A john who waved a gun in my face. I was terrified. And when I started screaming my head off, the client got so scared of the
racket I was making, he begged me to leave.”

  “He did?” Wendy sat up straighter. “You weren’t afraid to express your feelings. Your emotions saved your life! I think that’s something to be proud of. Especially at sixteen.”

  “Well,” I sniffled, “I ran out of his apartment and I tripped on my own pants—I was wearing harem pants with those cords at the ankles, but they were loose—and when I tripped, I slid down the stairs on my back in my high heels.”

  Wendy was now gripping the arms of her chair. “My god. At sixteen?”

  “Oh.” I stopped crying. “I was fine. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I was kind of shocked, but I wasn’t hurt.”

  “You could have broken your neck! Or your back!”

  “But I didn’t. I got right up, buttoned my blouse, found a cab, and went back to the escort agency. I was so relieved that none of the neighbors saw me.” I had just started working for Jeannie’s Dream Dates, an outcall service owned by a madam named Mary. She ran it from a midtown studio apartment, advertised in the Yellow Pages (and some other publications I prefer not to think about), and felt that Mary was a terrible name for a madam. So she called herself Jeannie.

  Wendy took a deep breath. “So this is what was going through your mind when Matt proposed? A narrow escape from a gun-toting john. Did that happen in New York?”

  “Yes.” I laughed briefly. “In a very nice town house right off Park Avenue in Murray Hill. Too much coke. The client was upset because I couldn’t make him come and his hour was up.”

  Maybe my flexible teenaged body saved me when I tumbled down those stairs. But the point is, I’ve gotten away with so much—how much longer can it go on? I’m not a teenager anymore.

  “And Matt’s proposal—was it really a surprise?”

  “God, yes. I never imagined…”

  Wendy jutted her chin forward—her Listening Gesture.

  “I had broken up with him and I was ready to devote myself to my business. I decided to swear off boyfriends. Then Matt called. He made up that story about the keys, which I believed.”